Day 25

Well, we're closing things down now, the open squares are about ready to be photographed and equipment is being returned. Friday we go to Jerusalem so I hope I'll be able to add a few entries before I return on Sunday. The Ben Gurion airport does have free wi-fi so that should be the last entry as I savor a latte.

Geographically we are in the Hula Valley. It continues into Lebanon and becomes the Bekaa Valley and provides access to Beruit. If we could. We have looking for the main Roman road that crosses our valley and which, after traveling east, then turns north to Damascus.

The east side of our valley is the Golan Heights (otherwise known as Occupied Territory), which we are right up against. Hope the Syrians don't get to come back too close.

The other side, a few miles away to the west, is the Naftali mountains which are part of Israel and form the border with Lebanon. Hezbollah made great sport, a few years ago, of lobbing rockets over.

The valley itself is part of the Great Rift Valley that extends down through the Dead Sea and the Red Sea into Africa. The Hula has had a number of earthquakes in historic times though we have been cautioned not to blame earthquakes for much of anything. Archaeologically, that is.

Here we're looking west across the smog-filled valley: